Skill
Skills – A skill is anything that appears in the skills box of a personnel card, including personnel types such as ENGINEER. (The personnel type that appears in the classification box is not a skill.) “All skills” refers to everything in a personnel’s skills box, including skills conceptually added by another card. See skills – modifying, skills – using Regular skills are one-word or two-word skills, such as Physics or Stellar Cartography. Special skills are usually explained in a sentence with a period at the end, such as “Orb artifacts may not be nullified.” Special download skills, preceded by the special download icon, and skills with negative modifiers, such as Mortal Q’s Leadership -1, are also defined as special skills. When a personnel is assimilated, their classification becomes their first-listed skill (unless that personnel type already appears as a skill, in which case that skill’s level is increased by one). First-listed skill – A personnel’s “first-listed skill” is the first skill printed in the skill box (whether a regular or special skill); or that skill as transformed by another card; or (if assimilated) its former classification. When a first-listed skill is “lost” (e.g., to a dilemma), the skill becomes conceptually blank or “no skill” (the second skill does not “slide over” to become a new first-listed skill). For example, Seskal is an OFFICER- classification personnel with SCIENCE, Stellar Cartography, and Anthropology skills. His “first-listed skill” is: • Normally: SCIENCE • After assimilation: OFFICER • When present with a Science Kit: SCIENCE x2 • After changing SCIENCE to Biology with Reflection Therapy: Biology • After being selected for Rascals: Youth • While aboard a ship affected by Tsiolkovsky Infection: no skill If a personnel has no first-listed skill because it has been removed by a dilemma, he is not affected by subsequent cards affecting the first-listed skill, and no other personnel has “the same first-listed skill” for purposes a dilemma such as The Clown: Playing Doctor. Most skills are preceded by a red • icon. However, the number of skills a personnel has is not necessarily the same as the number of skill dots on the Personnel card. Skill dots are not gained or lost when skills are added or removed by a card; Juliana Tainer has four regular skills and one special skill, but only two skill dots; and special download skills have a triangular icon instead of a dot. When a card such as Assimilate Counterpart refers to the number of • icon on a personnel, use the actual number of skill dots printed on the card. (If a card has errata, which are official changes, use the number of skill dots specified by the errata. See Tasha Yar – Alternate, T’Pan.) Skill Multipliers – A skill with an integral multiplier (x2, x3) is a single skill at a high level (not two or three skills). For example, when a card causes a personnel to lose his first-listed skill of Diplomacy x2, all Diplomacy is lost (it is not reduced to Diplomacy). If a personnel has Diplomacy as a skill and adds another Diplomacy by mindmelding, they combine to give Diplomacy x2. A skill with a fractional multiplier (x1/2) does not satisfy a requirement for that skill. For example, a personnel with Leadership x1/2 cannot solve a mission that requires Leadership, and does not count as a leader in battle. If he is present with another personnel with Leadership x1/2, together they have a full Leadership skill for these purposes. Negative Skills – A skill with a negative modifier, such as Valeris’s Diplomacy -3, is defined as a special skill (not a regular skill with a multiplier).